The St. Louis "Ladies Art Co." of 1889

      The St. Louis "Ladies Art Co." catalogues were produced by the Brauscheidt family who also owned and operated a general store near the riverfront. Their mail order company sold much more than quilter's patterns. They sold every supply one might imagine helpful or necessary to craft lace, needlepoint, knitting supplies etc...

Original cover design for 1889 catalogue

Price of their 1889 catalogue, $.25

Prices for the patterns only, printed in color on cardboard:

1 Pattern, $.10

3 Patterns, $.25 

7 Patterns, $.50

15 Patterns, $1.00

 

      "The miniature diagrams in the catalogue can give you but a faint idea of the beauty of these patterns, being here reduced to so small a size, the details are imperfectly brought out. The diagrams are printed on heavy card board and artistically colored, so as to give some idea how the finished blocks would look, being also suggestive of effective colors to use in making up the blocks. Though, of course, the combination of colors can be varied in a hundred ways to suit the individual's tastes and fancies."

   

The Ladies Art Co. also sold both finished blocks and entire quilts!

      

      "We will make up finished blocks to order from any diagram in this catalogue, of any size, and of any material such as: Silk, Woolen or Calico. It will be impossible to quote any prices here, as there are such a large number, some of which are simple and require little labor, while again others are very complicated and would take many times the amount of labor of other patterns, consequently the prices will be as various as the patterns. Then again the kind of blocks of one kind you want, will make a difference in the price. The price per block will be less if you take six or more, than a single block would be. They will be worked in the neatest and most artistic manner, and will be sure to please the most fastidious taste. Also, in making finished blocks to order, we can make them of any size desired. Write us full particulars of what you want, enclosing a two-cent stamp, and we shall be pleased to quote you prices. We will undertake to make up a whole quilt, from diagrams of your own selection. Materials furnished and orders taken for any description of Fancy Work, Painting, Embroidery, Lace Making, Tissue Paper Flowers, etc."

Advertisements Listed by The Ladies' Art Co. of St. Louis, Mo. in newspapers:

Listed in "The Ranch" from Seattle Washington in 1913
Every quilter should have our book of 450 designs containing
the prettiest, queerest scarcest, most grotesque patterns, from
old log cabin to stars and puzzle designs; also crazy stitches
and Cat. All postpaid, for six 2 ct. stamps etc...

From The New York Tribune in 1905
For 12c We send Cambric pattern of this beautiful front
collar and cuffs, to introduce our lace, embroidery and
perforated patterns.
Ladies' Art Co., 404 Broadway, Room 81, St. Louis Mo.

From The National Tribune, 1891
Satin and Plush Remnants for Crazy Patch. A large
pkg. pretty pieced assorted colors to ect...

From the New York Tribune, 1914
I cant' read this one; it's too worn away.

From the Evening Star, 1915
Contains hundreds of designs and four complete alphabets. With it we send
our catalog of Fancy Work. Price 15c; or two books 25c. Don't send stamps.
Ladies' Art Co. 163 Gay Bldg., St. Louis, Mo.

Read More About The Ladies' Art Co.:

• History of Ladies' Art Co. of St. Louis
• On This Index, I will upload and distribute many St. Louis Art Co. patterns in the future, but only on Sundays folks. I am growing old and tired...

Embroidery Design for a Sailor Collar

sketch of collar

      So numerous have been the requests for a sailor collar design that I am glad to offer one today that delightfully combines simplicity of decoration with just a little departure from the usual. White linen of medium weight is perhaps best for this idea; the conventional design is arranged to allow you a freedom of choice in working-a message that all needle-workers hail with joy. 

      The flowers you can work in the flat wallachian stitch if you wish. This is quick and effective and promises durability. But if your preferences be for solid work, you can disregard the central vein put there as a guide for the wallachain, and after padding slightly the petals should be worked with the usual solid stich. The central part of each flower can be a tiny eyelet to match the groups of eyelets in the body of the design. If I were you, I would not overdo the matter, but would work the groups of three disks on the border in regular solid stitch.

      The stems should be kept slender, suggesting a line, for the border must not be made to heavy in appearance. 

      When working the scallops, a slight padding is necessary, using daring cotton in a chain stitch is you aim at quickness in the work. To make the edge doubly strong, a buttonhole stitch is suggested as a final touch. 

      I cannot too heartily emphasize the comfort of the sailor collar for blouse or dress. In the all-white scheme which can be combined with any color, or with touches of color to bring it into harmony with a colored dress, it stands in an important place in summer fashions, and I am sure it will be prominent in the summer's work of industrious women. 

 

Round Table Mat Design for Either Linen or Leather

 Directions For Embroidery Design.

      Transfer patterns are very popular just at present, and one can attribute their popularity principally to the ease with which they can be handled, transferred to fabric, etc.

      The design pictured you can readily transfer to linen, leather or burlap by inserting a sheet of carbon, or tracing paper between the design and fabric, then going over all the lines of the design with a stylus or sharp pencil.

      You will then find the lines on the fabric distinct enough to follow in your embroidery.

 

       This historic pattern has a bit of a "Art Deco" flair in it's design. The pattern was originally designed to create a cover for a circular table. A lamp or a decorative bowl could then be centered in the middle of the design for either practical purposes or decorative ones. This would also prevent scratching to the surface of the table top.

Three Decorative Embroidery Borders

       These decorative embroidery borders were published by the Washington Herold in 1912. The lower two are very much like those patterns found in Art Deco motifs. Originally these were suggested for fancy hand towels but you could embroider pillows or even a nice table cloth with these suggestions to go with your period furniture pieces.

 

Embroidery Patterns for Blue Birds

       With Spring and Summer birthdays and celebrations not so many weeks away, embroidery designs to be used on gifts are especially in demand. This week designs of blue birds in different sizes are shown. 

       In using the printed design from a printed copy, the directions are as follows: If the material is sheer, the easiest way to transfer the patterns is to lay it over the design, which sill show through plainly, and draw over each line with a hard sharp pencil. If your linen is heavy, buy a piece of impression paper (transfer paper) - the kind that does not rub off-- lay it on your material, place the design over it and trace with a hard pencil. You will find the design neatly transferred.

Vintage cross-stitch patterns for pillow shams and hand towels...

This design of a vase with flowers is by Sarah Hale,

 she suggested it for a pillow sham.

       A hand towel done in cross stitch is always appreciated as a gift. This little windmill is an effective design and is very quickly worked. It will look best done in delft blue shades of embroidery floss. All the stitches which slant in one direction should be worked first and then crossed by those which slant in the opposite direction.

Antique Persian Embroidery

Tiny Persian vase with striped blooms.

        Persian embroidery is one of the many forms of the multi-faceted Persian arts. The motifs used in the Persian embroidery are mostly floral, especial Persian figures, animals, and patterns related to hunting.
      We know that the Persian embroidery existed from the ancient times and at least from the time of the Sassanids. Numerous designs are visible on the dresses of the personages on the rock-sculptures and silverware of that period, and have been classified by Professor Ernst Herzfeld. Also the patterns on the coat of Chosroes II at Taq-e Bostan are in such high relief that they may represent embroidery. Roundels, confronted animals and other familiar motives of Sassanid art were doubtless employed. It is probable that the famous Garden Carpet of Chosroes II was a piece of embroidery.
      The Persian embroideries we possess of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are almost exclusively divan-coverings or ceremonial cloth for present-trays, while in the eighteenth century and later we have the addition of rugs for the bathing-rooms, prayer-mats, and women's embroidered trousers, known as 'naghshe'.
      The earlier embroideries of Iran are almost all of a type in which the entire ground is covered by the design, while the reverse is true, in the main, of the later pieces, in which the background of one plain color is made to play its part equally with the varied silks of the needlework illustrated below. The earlier pieces are almost all closely allied in design to one or other of the many types of carpets. They are worked chiefly in darning-stitch on cotton or loosely woven linen, while occasionally examples in cross- or tent-stitch are met with. It is perhaps reasonable to assume that the more important class of work, that of carpet-weaving, supplied the original design and that the embroiderer adopted it from a type familiar to her. Also it must be remembered that the carpet-weaving was mainly done by men, embroidery by women, so that members of the same family worked at both trades.

The Samples Posted Here are Over 1000 Years Old

Persian sample include motifs like: flowers, plant-life, fruits,  and tea pots.

Very fine linens, wools and silks are embroidered into the fabrics and sometimes precious gold and silver thread is used.

Very detailed, select samples from the Maison Sedille collections.

A close-up view of tiny perfect stitches. Trees in a garden, Left. Top Right, clover leaf. Next Below,
pink tulips. Center, yellow tulips. Bottom Right, singular flower in a vase.

• 19th Century Example of Persian Embroidery at The Met
• See a fantastic Persian silk & metal thread embroidered comb case at Gallery Tulip

Baltimore Album Quilts

Baltimore Album quilt, c. 1848, collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

       Baltimore Album Quilts originated in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1840s. They have become one of the most popular styles of quilts and are still made today. These quilts are made up of a number of squares called blocks. Each block has been appliquéd with a different design. The designs are often floral, but many other motifs are also used, such as eagles and landmarks. They have a background of white and incorporate many primary colors such as reds, greens and blues.

      In the beginning, these quilts of appliquéd blocks were often designed by the maker. In time, patterns by accomplished designers were used.

      Baltimore Album Quilts reflected the prosperous community of Baltimore, the second largest city in the United States until the civil war, as most were made not with scraps, but with new fabric. Improvements in fabric manufacture and dying provided new colors that were incorporated into the album designs. As the popularity of this quilt style grew, women far beyond Baltimore began making these album quilts.

      Most Baltimore Album quilts were signed. The discovery of an indelible ink made it possible to ink flowery poetry and sayings along with a signature on each block. It appears making these quilts were especially popular with young women. Many included blocks each made by a different person. The complexity of the designs of the blocks demonstrated the skill and taste of the maker. Many hours were devoted to the creation of each of these quilts, and many were carefully preserved as family heirlooms.

Judi Shapiro talks about Baltimore Album Quilts History

More Related Links:

• My Textile Arts: Baltimore Beauties Pinboard
• Home of Marylou McDonald's Baltimore Quilts website 
• Baltimore Album Elegant Sampler Quilts

What Is Redwork?

       Redwork is a form of American embroidery, also called art needlework, that developed in the 19th century and was particularly popular between 1855 and 1925. It traditionally uses red thread, chosen because red dyes were the first commercially available colorfast dyes, in the form of Turkey red embroidery floss. Redwork designs are composed of simple stitches and were mainly used to decorate household objects in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially quilts. Patterns for individual quilt blocks were sold for a penny in the United States, making them popular and affordable. In the 21st century, redwork has seen a resurgence among crafters. The main stitch used in redwork is backstitch or outline stitching, formerly known as Kensington stitch. Redwork was a common introductory form of embroidery taught to children in the 19th and 20th century. Children would make quilts decorated with redwork motifs, with motifs of various sizes prior to approximately 1910 and uniform sizes after that year. It was also a way for women with skills in pattern stamping or embroidery to generate their own source of income from the home.
       The motifs used in redwork were specific to the item embroidered: water motifs would be used on backsplash cloths, the words "good night" and "good morning" used on quilts, and chairs on upholstered items. The most popular designs found in early redwork (prior to 1900) include Japanese inspired imagery, children, toys, animals and insects, and elaborately-coiffed women, some of which were adapted from designs made for crazy quilts. After the turn of the 20th century, Beatrix Potter characters and animals were the most popular. In the 1910s, tea-towel motifs were adapted into redwork designs, including calendrical themes and kitchenware. The following decade saw the predominance of state birds and state flowers.

Gay Boomers demonstrates rework stitches.

More Redwork from YouTube:

• Gourmet Quilter shows how to get started with redwork stitchery
• Redwork collections

Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts

Some of the historical schools that

survive today remain unrestored,

and in disrepair. The one pictured

 (in northern Price County, Wisconsin), is

 located on private land and remains

 unrestored, despite community interest

in preserving it.

      Red and white quilts were frequently sewn by groups of ladies who then sold them at auction in order to raise funds for their local, rural school or sometimes a country church. I've included a history of the one-room school houses that so many of our grandparents were once taught in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Many of these school houses were indeed painted red or built from red brick in the Midwest where I grew up as was the public school my grandmother attended during most of her childhood.

      One-room schools were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In most rural (country) and small town schools, all of the students met in a single room. There, a single teacher taught academic basics to several grade levels of elementary-age boys and girls. While in many areas one-room schools are no longer used, it is not uncommon for them to remain in developing nations and rural areas, such as much of the Falklands and Shetland.

     The quality of facilities at one-room schools varied with local economic conditions, but generally, the number of children at each grade level would vary with local populations. Most buildings were of simple frame construction, some with the school bell on a cupola. In the Midwest, sod construction was also used, as well as stone in areas such as portions of the southwest where trees were scarce. In some locations, the schoolhouse was painted red, but most seem to have been white. 

      One-room school building in Jefferson, Colorado Mission Ridge School was one of the early schools in Mason County, West Virginia. It has been moved to the West Virginia State Farm Museum complex near Point Pleasant. Examination of the materials in this building indicates that boards and timbers were hand-sawed and also hand-planed. Square nails were used throughout the building. Except for the roof and a few boards in the floor, all of the material in this building is original. The blackboard really is a black board, made of wide boards painted black. It was not until much later that slate was used for chalkboards, although students often had individual slates for writing practice. 

      Teachers in one-room schools were often former students themselves. Their role is well-described by a student from Kentucky in the 1940s: "The teachers that taught in the one room, rural schools were very special people. During the winter months they would get to the school early to get a fire started in the potbelly stove, so the building would be warm for the students. On many occasions they would prepare a hot, noon meal on top of the stove, usually consisting of soup or stew of some kind. They took care of their students like a new mother hen would care for her newly hatched chicks; always looking out for their health and welfare." 

      A typical school day was 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with morning and afternoon recesses of 15 minutes each and an hour period for lunch. "The older students were given the responsibility of bringing in water, carrying in coal or wood for the stove. The younger students would be given responsibilities according to their size and gender such as cleaning the black board (chalkboard), taking the erasers outside for dusting plus other duties that they were capable of doing."

      Transportation for children who lived too far to walk was often provided by horse-drawn kid hack or sulky, which could only travel a limited distance in a reasonable amount of time each morning and evening, or students might ride a horse, these being put out to pasture in an adjoining paddock during the day. In more recent times, students rode bicycles. 

      The school house was the center and focus for thousands of rural communities, hamlets and small towns. Often, town meetings and picnics were also held there. 

      The vast majority of one-room schools in the United States are no longer used as schools and have either been torn down or converted for other purposes. However, in some rural communities, including among the Amish, one-room or two-room schools are still used, primarily for elementary education, with students graduating to local or regional middle and high schools. 

      The final operating one-room school in the United States was located in Wainscott, New York. The Wainscott School was located in various one-room buildings until an annex was built in 2008.

Free Little House Quilt Patterns:

• House Quilt Block Pattern from About.com
• Two Story Red & White House Quilt Block
• Classic Little House Pattern from Quilt Discovery Experience 

Patterns for Red Work: Cats Big and Small

       I will post sketches of large cats on this page for your quilting projects. Thus far I have lions and tigers...

A male lion with his mate

A side view of a tiger.

The profile of a tiger only.

Shadow Work Design for A Tea Apron

      Shadow embroidery is made on sheer fabric, the handkerchief linen being the best for the purpose. Study the simple arrangement of forming the cat-stitch shown in the diagram. The miniature stitches taken in forming the latticework effect at the back appear in an outline of tiny stitches on the right side, making a beading which must be evenly placed to outline the leaves on the right side, making the long and short stitch around the leaves. This is very pretty with shadow embroidery and most frequently used. However one does not use leaf green, but most always the same color of the flower.

      The plan for the apron herein shown is a development of rose pink on white. If you make the leaves in shadow effect, use the same identical pink that is used on your flower petals or use white floss and outline on the right side, but avoid the obvious choice of green. Finish the rose petals at the center with pink French knots. Do not attempt a color scheme to give the real rose coloring. It would appear cheap and tawdry. The tea apron should be as delicate and floral in effect as the stately pink or white cosmos. Sincerely yours, Winifred Worth.

Click directly on the image to download the largest possible size. Design by Winifred Worth.

Shadow work embroidery with Wendy Schoen

Download and watch the entire video here.

Homemade Quilts Still Popular In 1907

Home=Made Quilts Of U.S. Represent $675,000,000 Labor

Girls of Today Eschew "Quilting Bee" Old Fashioned Patterns Are Still in Vogue.

      John D. Rockefeller's wealth couldn't buy all the home-made quilts of the United States. Statistical Sam, having craved the indulgence of the kitchen cabinet, continued:

      There are at least two home-made quilts to each of the 15,000,000 families of this country; one that 'her mother's made, and one that 'his mother' made.

      Home-made quilts are made in spare time. Quilt-making women have little spare time; for, they are able to sit down to piece and patch and sew at those rare intervals when all the rest of the household duties have been attended to.

      It takes a year's spare time to make a home-made quilt. Leaving out Sundays and holidays, three-hundred is the number of possible quilting days. Allowing one half hour each day for quilt-making, one hundred and fifty hours are devoted to the completion of one quilt.

      The average price of female labor in the Orient is 10 cents a day. The Mexican woman of the peon class receives 20 cents.  A capable hired girl in the United States get 50 cents a day; while a qualified seamstress demands and receives pay at the rate of $1.00 a day. Then, why shouldn't the domestic American mother's spare time spent in quilt-making be worth a little more? It is! for the reason that spare time is precious time-- overtime! And the same should be rated as time-and-a-half, according to the pay of the seamstress.

One of the most popular of grandmother's patterns

for her home-made quilt was, and is still, known as

 the 'big star.'

      Say, then, she spends one-half-hour a day sewing home-made quilts, and that it takes one year to make one quilt-the problem becomes interesting.

      The 30,000,000 home-made quilts that 'his mother' and 'her mother' made, according to my figures, represent $675,000,000 worth of overtime.

      It is a generally conceded fact, that a rich man's fortune dwindles one-third under the hammer. Subjected to a compulsory turning into cash, John D. Rockefeller's billion dollars would assume the proportions of $666,666,666.66 2-8, which wouldn't be sufficient to pay for the labor expended on the home-made quilts of the United States, even at a rummage sale. Because, every man-jack of a true American would be there with the individual over-bidding, redeeming price to save his home-made quilt. 

      One of the most popular of grandmother's patterns for her home-made quilt was, and is still, known as the 'big star.' Another old-time favorite which has stood the test of time is the 'box' quilt, so designed that any way you look at it you see cubes. Four hundred and eighty-six diamond shaped pieces are required to make the regulation star for the 'big star' quilt. The 'box' quilt, also fashioned of diamonds, may contain as many pieces as suits the fancy of its maker. The 'crazy' quilt has no definite pattern. It is a better mess sort of an effort; though, withal, it is often as highly prized as its high-toned cousin, 'log cabin.'

      More love, life and labor is wrapped up in the home-made quilt then may at first be imagined. Years of saving neckties, hat crowns, ribbons and bits of silk are required to provide the bare material for its pattern. And the mother, or wife, who makes it can in nine cases out of ten call each particular piece and tell you what it used to be and whence it came.

      The girls of today are not so greatly given to quilting as were our mothers and their mothers. The demands of present day society and the allurements of contingent amusement forbid. When we were children, however, the 'quilting-bee' was one of the chiefest mild amusements to which the women folk flocked.

      The intrinsic value of the homemade quilt may not be fully set down in dollars and cents. There is sentiment connected with it that money couldn't buy. Here's to the homemade quilt! Pensacola Journal, 1907

The Box Quilt Pattern.

"When I was a lad in the country, Jack,

I started out horses to trade.

I married a girl, Jack. Bedding she brought;

And a quilt that her grandmother made.

What would I give for he old times back!

With horses in plenty to trade;

to sleep neath the quilt the girlie-girl brought;

Neath the quilt that her grandmother made!

Don't ask me!!"

Sam's Problem.

300 working days one year.

1/2 hour's sewing each day.

15 cents per hour, overtime wages.

 Answer.

Mother's labor on quilt, $22.50 (in 1907)

Designs by Kate Greenway for Needlepoint

A little boy and girl by Kate Greenaway for crazy

quilts based upon antique variations.

     Especially popular during the 1880s were the designs of Kate Greenaway (Catherine Greenaway -17 March 1846 – 6 November 1901). Women often incorporated needlepoint and painted stencils from Greenaways illustrated books into their crazy quilts.

      Greenaway's paintings were reproduced by chromoxylography, by which the colors were printed from hand-engraved wood blocks by the firm of Edmund Evans. Through the 1880s and 1890s, her only rivals in popularity in children's book illustration were Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott.

      "Kate Greenaway" children, all of them little girls and boys too young to be put in trousers, according to the conventions of the time, were dressed in her own versions of late eighteenth century and Regency fashions: smock-frocks and skeleton suits for boys, high-waisted pinafores and dresses with mobcaps and straw bonnets for girls. The influence of children's clothes in portraits by British painter John Hoppner (1758–1810) may have provided her some inspiration. Liberty of London adapted Kate Greenaway's drawings as designs for actual children's clothes. A full generation of mothers in the liberal-minded "artistic" British circles who called themselves "The Souls" and embraced the Arts and Crafts movement dressed their daughters in Kate Greenaway pantaloons and bonnets in the 1880s and 1890s.

Add a few little girls by Kate Greenaway

to your next crazy quilt design.

Antique Alphabet Designs from Paris

       These lovely floral letters were originally designed for cross stitch I believe. They are from the 1800s and are French in origin. Wouldn't these look nice on a set of linens for a new bride? Click directly on the image to download the largest pattern available. 

A through M floral letters for cross stitch.

N through Z floral letters for cross stitch.

Original Designs for Victorian Doylies

Description of Needlepoint Pattern: patterns from 1880, bonnets, pets, toys, girls and boys, needlepoint of children, Victorians, for crazy quilts

Have a question about the illustration? Just type it in the comment box and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. I only publish content that is closely related to the subject folks.

Embroidery Designs for Old-Fashioned Pin Cushions

Tiny flower motif for a Victorian pin cushion.

      This pincushion (above) cover done in punch or pierced work is charming when finished. The flowers and circle are worked solid with the scrolls in the outline stitch and the large dots as eyelets. The punch work in the center is done with a very large needle and preferably in fine cotton. The needle is pushed up through through the one dot and down through the opposite one twice, drawing the stitches quite tight, then the needle is brought up through the next dot in a slanting direction and the same thing is repeated in all the dots, running both ways, so that little squares are formed with large holes at each corner. Use mercerized cotton for the embroidery.

Victorian motif for a sachet.

       Another charming little motif to be used on sachets, pin cushions, or fancy articles. The flowers, buds and leaves are embroidered solid, and the stems are worked in the outline stitch. The dots in the centers of the flowers are done in French knots.

More Related Content:

• Crazy quilt pincushion designs
• Sewing Tutorial: Turtle Pincushion

Embroidery Designs for Infant Shoes

Designs for infant shoes and bib.

      The scalloped edge is to be padded and button-holed. The leaves, flowers and dots can be worked solidly or as eyelets. The stems are to be outlined. To pad the scallops work chain stitch between the lines, heaver at the centers, lighter at the points of the scallops, or apply one or more threads between the lines, tacking here and there in couching style and drawing closely together at the points. Button-hole over the foundation.

      In the design given for the infant shoes, the scalloped edges are designed to be buttonholed, the flowers and leaves are to be worked in solid embroidery with the stems outlined and the dots either solid or as eyelets, or the flowers, leaves and dots may all be don in eyelet work.

      The window pane method is perhaps the simplest and is particularly successful when the material is thin such as batiste, lawn, or handkerchief linen, the best plan is to pin the sheet of paper and the material together an hold them up against the window pane and with a sharp pencil trace the design on the fabric, or else lay the material on the pattern on top of a table or other hard surface, and carefully trace the design with a well pointed pencil. The design may also be transferred to heavy material by using a piece of transfer or carbon paper, to be placed between the pattern and cloth, using a sharp pointed pencil to secure a clean line.

More Related Content:

• Molly's Sketchbook: Felt Baby Shoes
• Shoe and Slipper Crafts from Martha Stewart
• Bib applique patterns, and swapping goodies!
• Boutique Baby Bibs

Victorian Scrap of A Book Cover

Description of Illustration: ladies by the lake, trees, view, Victorian book illustrated, blue binding
 

Have a question about the illustration? Just type it in the comment box and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. I only publish content that is closely related to the subject folks.

City Window Garden

       But there is another gay season for the city lover than that of the winter and its routs; it is when spring opens, and before people begin to leave town, and the flower-boxes in varied windows are called into bloom. To be sure, all winter long the florists' windows are bowers of loveliness, and so are many of the windows of the wealthy, under which the children of the poor often stop in admiring groups. But let the chill once forsake earth and air and even in the poorer quarters of the town the little boxes at the windows begin to show that nature will everywhere repay love and care, show to make these flower-boxes answer a purpose, and how to make the miserable little backyards beautiful and useful, Miss Louise Forester may tell us in a way that shall perhaps help another young gardener in her work.

In 1950, the regeneration of Victorian window-boxes 

to add color and interest in an otherwise dismal and

depressing environment, of course!

The Gay Season

       Yes, there probably will always be a gay season so long as society holds together by its present structure, and even those who have and desire to have nothing to do with it must witness more or less of it and be aware of it, however unwillingly. Artistically considered, it has a certain value, if only as  showing the possibilities of beauty attainable under the present conditions of favorable life. We need not go to the ancients in these times for the ideal of loveliness in the outward forms of social mingling. Some daylight sacrificial festival by the blue waters of the Egean, with torches turning pale in the sunshine, with the flower-decked and filleted victim, the dancing youths and maidens under the festoons of their floral ropes and wreaths, may have been more remotely poetical; a Roman supper may have been more voluptuous; a Pompeiian revel may have been more wild and wanton; but a mask of the gods could hardly be more beautiful than are some of the nightly entertainments of the gay season of the present. Winter changed to summer, night into softly glowing day, bare walls to bowers of bloom out of which gleam statues like the gods just alit, and pictures like dreams of a yet lovelier life all this constitutes an enchanted background for the throngs that troop across it, the dark shadows of one class of the participants in the pleasure throwing out all the brilliance of the other portion with its rosy flesh and glistening hair and starry eyes and curving outlines, the brilliance, moreover, of the material in which this beauty robes itself, to whose lustrous wealth neither the dreams of poets nor the facts of antiquity ever approached; for laces and silks and velvets, at any rate, are of the modern world, and the substance in which poets clothe their dreams of beauty is filmy and vaporous stuff as thin as moonshine. And meanwhile, if the gay season is an artistic success, wherever it kindles the wit in any degree and puts a sparkle into conversation, it is intellectual success as well. Those who admire and excuse this series of festive pageants declare that there is another view of it worthy of a pause, and that is a consideration of its beneficent nature in our social economy, in the part of the good Samaritan which it so undoubtedly plays. Does this seem an impossible or Quixotic view? Give, then, but a glance to the army of workers glad and thankful to be workers whom this gay season calls to the front; not merely housemaid and cook, coachman and groom, milliner and seamstress, but the multitude of those who produce and prepare the raw material which these ultimately handle, the multitude of underlings who assist them all, till the work ramifies through a thousand far-extended avenues, so that some single ball not only calls into requisition the forces of market-men, the finest fancies of florists and designers, the running of the steamships that import its novelties, but saves from starvation and beggary the denizen of many an attic.
       The gay season may in itself as those who roll to swell its triumph, with plume and jewel, with epaulet or train, forget the existence of any others less fortunate than themselves be called as heartless as any other great machine; but, like most great machines, it does unconsciously a tremendous work, and, with the industries it necessitates, tides over the dark and cruel winter months, when there is little hope and less joy to those who otherwise might have no season at all. May there always be a gay season, then, its upholders exclaim net too gay a season, not a mad revel, but a brief and brilliant  tournament of youth and beauty! May the early years enjoy it, and the advancing years look on well pleased with the pageant ! May it charm for the passing moment, but not captivate one instant beyond its proper power; and, while its light burns ever so brightly, may it not put out the sun! For, after all, there are those of good reason who totally disapprove of the extravagance and the waste of time. The philosophers and the political economists deny that there is any advantage in the expenditure of wealth after this fashion, assuring us that only injury is wrought thereby.
       Mr. Ruskin says that as long as there is cold and nakedness in the land, splendor of dress is a crime. "As long as there are any," he says, "who have no blankets for their beds, and no rags for their bodies, so long it is blanket-making and tailoring we must set people to work at not lace."
       Society is of course a charming thing: the reunion of kindred souls in scenes made as lovely as artifice can make them ; people always at their best, and conscious of it; with every enjoyment to pass the time pleasure, excitement, admiration, the dance, the opera, the theatre, the drive. But it is life in too concentrated a form, like the nourishment where nothing goes to waste, and which, while it enriches the blood, causes the atrophy of certain of the organs. The experiment having been tried of feeding guinea-pigs with sugar alone, it was found that the little creatures lived a short space of time, and then those that did not die became blind. Too long and too undiluted a diet of gay life would be no better for the soul than the undiluted saccharine matter was for the unfortunate animal; and it is a merciful arrangement that, after the faculties have received sufficient stimulus and the senses sufficient enjoyment, puts an end to it all with the total and arbitrary change of habit that the Lenten season brings. Then the swift rout is succeeded by the quiet life, the nightly revel by the morning walk, the call of charity, the household duty, the neglected book, and the performance of all those little acts postponed when the days only waited on the nights to bring the next one round. Then one has time to recall the fact that there are those less favored by fate than one's self; then one has time to put one's self in one's enemies' place and see what their justification may be ; time to look over one's own life, and learn what has been amiss, to make new resolutions, and indulge them a little while before beginning to break them ; then there is time to enter on the search for those less favored ones, if they are not at the door, and to do what may be done toward striking the balance in this life that death will strike at last when the earth is cast upon one. 

Victorian's had to observe etiquette before entering

 into society. The "Gay Season" refers in this case,

 to the season of being introduced to society for 

arranged marriages.

Society

       Such rooms as those of which the old china and rich draperies and costly bric-a-brac make part are necessary in a place where what is known as Society takes on its most splendid guise, and where there is such a positive thing as the gay season. For it makes no difference how much want and suffering may be abroad in the town or in the land, there is always a gay season in town, and probably there always will be one. For as one generation tires, another is springing upon the scene, and all the fardels belonging to the glitter and frolic that these are dropping from their hold those are ready to catch as they dance on. The new belles and the new beaux will always have a mutual attraction; the old belles drop off, to be sure, but the old beaux linger to see these fresh young beauties who are just taking up the business of life with such a sparkle in their wondering eyes, such a vitality in their veins, and when any of these old beaux drops off, some one of the young belles usually drops off with him.

A Victorian era ballroom dance reenactment.

The Advantures of a Pound of Cotton

       Since steam, that great afrite, has put the hand to shame, these wonders  have probably been eclipsed, and the adventures of a single pound of cotton, borne on its wings, and for sale in the London market, are like a tale of  the Arabian Nights journeying from the Indies to London docks, thence to  Lancashire to be spun, thence to Paisley to be woven, to Ayrshire to be tamboured, to Dumbarton to be hand-sewed, back to Paisley, on to Glasgow for a finish, and once more in London, having traveled five thousand miles by sea and one thousand by land, supporting by the labor spent on it one hundred and fifty people, and increasing its own value some two thousand per cent.
       The spinning-wheel, certainly as much as anything, has been a badge of woman's servitude. For while all her time was needed to make the clothing for her family, there was none for her to spend in illuminating her mind. And so it is not unpleasant to-day to see this old badge made the sport of circumstance, and what was once a slavery now affording pastime in the drawing-room. Broken and disused, and in dishonor, and shorn of its locks, as it is, it was once a mighty tyrant; and we should think the lovely ladies, free to pursue pleasure, art, learning, to mount the ladder to the stars with men, and who have adorned their drawing-rooms with the mimicry and mockery of its old estate, might in some twilight be haunted by a strange dream of it, pulling down the temple of their freedom and happiness about them. And as they play with it now, in all their liberty and possibilities and comparative enlightenment, they may do well to be mindful of the bondage in which it held their "forebys, " and in which its rude forerunner, the distaff, still holds certain of their sisters. "The art of spinning," says an elegant writer, "in one of its simplest and most primitive forms, is yet pursued in Italy, where the country-women of Caia still turn the spindle unrestrained by that ancient rural law which forbade its use without doors. The distaff has outlived the consular fasces, and survived the conquests of the Goth and the Hun But rustic hands alone now sway the sceptre of Tanaquil, and all but the peasant disdain a practice which once beguiled the leisure of high-born dames."

The Spinster

       The distinctive nature of the term spinster, as applicable to none above a viscount's daughter in rank, is a slight curiosity in history: it is probably due to the fact that the increase of wealth and the introduction cf printed literature enabled ladies of rank to find amusement and employment otherwheres than at the wheel, which was abandoned to the use of those unable to command the luxury of their own time women presumably below the rank of a viscount's daughter. Wonderful things used to be done with the wheel, though in those times before machinery made nothing of wonders. One girl was known to spin a pound of wool into eighty-four thousand yards of thread, almost equal to forty-eight miles; and another at a later period spun the same quantity into a thread something more than one hundred and fifteen miles in length but she was a famous spinner.

 

Karen Hainlen is a professional, contemporary spinster.

The Distaff

       The first day after the twelve winter holidays used to be known as St. Distaff's Day, for then the women renewed the work that play had so long interrupted. It was still, in real fact, only another holiday, for the men made a point of leaving their own work to set fire to the flax the women were bringing out, and the women, in turn, provided themselves with buckets of cold water to dash over the depredators, and all was good humor.

'If the maids a-spinning go,

Burn the flax and fire the tow;

Bring in pails of water then,

Let the maids bewash the men,'

sang Herrick ; by which we may judge the custom to have been tolerably prevalent.

       It is observable that the occupation of the distaff and the spinning-wheel has associated itself with women even to the point of contempt, our first pictured memorials of the race on Egyptian and Hindostanee monuments showing women with the useful toy in hand the toy despised by all men but Achilles and Hercules. "On the side of the spear" was an old legal phraseology to signify a descent in the male line, "on the side of the distaff" to indicate female descent. In the early times, when rapine and all violence were the distinguishing masculine traits or, we may say, employments, honor was held to come only from such work as bloodshed, conquest and plunder; there was none given for the quiet performance of the duties at home; and as women stayed at home pursuing their quiet duties, preparing food and clothes and nursing the wounded, the distaff became disdainfully associated with them. "The Crown of France never falls to the distaff," said the contemptuous French proverb; but it is more than a French proverb that woman's wit cannot overreach, and the distaff has in reality frequently and secretly been the sceptre there, the power behind the throne, making and unmaking the for-tunes of the nation.

       It was not till the fourteenth century that the distaff was superseded by vile spinning wheel, and not till about a hundred years later that the wheel appeared at which the spinner could sit instead of stand; and almost immediately afterward the term spinster in our language was modified so as to be descriptive only of an unmarried woman below the rank of a viscount's daughter, and not of all unmarried women though why unmarried at all is a question we leave for Rosa Dartle; for although the farm-wives of good condition were wont to hire their spinning done by any spinner in need of the work, there was never a farm-wife who did not know how to do it herself.

 What is St. Distaff's Day?